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“why, it’s impossible to carry that to camdem town” said 

SCROOGE. [page 45.] 





THE 

RAINY DAY SERIES 
t 


A Christmas Carol 


By CHARLES DICKENS 


REWRITTEN FOR YOUNG READERS BY 

MARGARET WATERS 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

HUGO VON HOFSTEN 


BREWER, BARSE & CO 

CHICAGO 


JUillijM 






' LISRARY of CONGRESS 


Iwo Copies Received 

juu 20 iyor 



COPY a. ' 


s^V 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

"“Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camdem Town,” 

SAID Scrooge Frontispiece -y^ 

“It’s NOT CONVENIENT,” SAID ScROOGE, “aND It’s NOT FAIR.” 8 J 

Marley’s Ghost 16 / 

“Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs Fez- 

ziwiG 24 y 

Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly 

WITH THE PUDDING 32 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business 

MEN 40 



COPYRIGHT. 1907 
BY 

BREWER. BARSE & CO. 


A CHRISTMAS CAROL 


STAVE ONE. 

marley’s ghost. 

Marley was dead. There is no doubt whatever 
about that. The register of his burial was signed by 
the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief 
mourner. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. 
Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how 
many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole 
administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary lega- 
tee, his sole friend and sole mourner. 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. 
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse 
door: Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new 
to the business called Scrooge Scrooge and sometimes. 
Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the 
same to him. 

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- 
stone. Scrooge! Hard and sharp as flint, from which 
no steel had ever struck out generous fire. The cold 
within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed 
nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his 
eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in 
his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, 
on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He iced his office 
in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at 
Christmas. 

No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill 
him. 


4 


A Christmas Carol 


Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with 
gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? 
When will you come to see me?” No beggars im- 
plored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him 
the way to such and such a place, no man or woman 
once in all his life inquired the time of day, of Scrooge. 

Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; 
and when they saw him coming on, would tug their 
owners into doorways and up courts; and then would 
wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is 
better than an evil eye, dark master!” 

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing 
he liked. 

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, 
on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his count- 
ing-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy 
withal : and he could hear the people in the court out- 
side go wheezing up and down, beating their hands 
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the 
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had 
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: and 
candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbor- 
ing offices. 

The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that 
he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal 
little cell beyond was copying letters. S'crooge had a 
very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much 
smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t 
replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own 
room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the 
shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary 
for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white 
comforter and tried to warm himself at the candle; in 
which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, 
he failed. 

“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” It 
was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon 


A Christmas Carol 


5 

him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had 
of his approach. 

‘‘Bah!” said Scrooge. “Humbug!” 

“Christmas a humbug, uncle?” said Scrooge's 
nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure.” 

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What 
right have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.” 

“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What 
right have you to be dismal? You’re rich enough.” 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready said, “Bah!” 
again. 

“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew. 

“Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christ- 
mas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.” 

“Keep it!” repeated Scoorge’s nephew. “But you 
don’t keep it.” 

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. 

“There are many things from which I might have 
derived good by which I have not profited, I dare say,” 
returned the nephew; “Christmas among the rest. 
And, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or 
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, 
and will do me good; and I say, ‘God bless it!’ ” 

The clerk involuntarily applauded; becoming im- 
mediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the 
fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever. 

“I^et me hear another sound from you,” said 
Scrooge, “and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing 
your situation.” 

“Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to- 
morrow.” 

“Why did you get married?” said Scrooge. 

“Because I fell in love.” 

“Because you fell in love!” growled Scrooge, as if 
that were the only one thing in the world more ridicu- 
lous than a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!” 

“Nay, uncle, you never came to see me before that 


6 A Christmas Carol 

happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming 
now?” 

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. 

“I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; 
why cannot we be friends?” 

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. 

“We have never had any quarrel, to which I have 
been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to 
Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humor to the 
last. So, a Merry Christmas, uncle!” 

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. 

“And a Happy New Year!” 

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word. 

The clerk, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let 
two other people in. 

“Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one of the 
gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure 
of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley?” 

“Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” 
Scrooge replied. 

“We have no doubt his liberality is well represented 
by his surviving partner,” said the gentleman, present- 
ing his credentials. 

At the ominous word “liberality” Scrooge frowned 
and handed the credentials back. 

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’^ 
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than 
usually desirable that we should make some slight pro- 
vision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at 
the present time. 

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. 

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down 
the pen. 

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. 
“Are they still in operation?” 

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman. 


A Christmas Carol 


7 

‘‘The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, 
then?” 

“Both very busy, sir.” 

“Oh! I was afraid that something had occurred to 
stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. 

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish 
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” re- 
turned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavoring to 
raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and 
means of warmth. What shall I put you down for?” 

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied. 

“You wish to be anonymous?” 

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you 
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I 
don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t af- 
ford to make idle people merry.” 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue 
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. 

The hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. 
With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, 
and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in 
the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put 
on his hat. 

“You’ll want all day tomorrow, i suppose?” said 
Scrooge. 

“If quite convenient. Sir.” 

“It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s not 
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think 
yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?” 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

“And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me ill- 
used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work. 

The clerk observed this was only once a year. 

“A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 
twenty-fifth of December!” said Scoorge, buttoning his 
great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have 
the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.’^ 


A Christmas Carol 


Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual mel- 
ancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, 
and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s- 
book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers that 
once belonged to his deceased partner. 

The house was old enough now, and dreary enough, 
for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms be- 
ing all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that 
even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to 
grope with his hands. 

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all par- 
ticular about the knocker on the door, except that it 
was very large. And then let any man explain to me, 
if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his 
key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without 
its undergoing any intermediate process of change; not 
a knocker, but Marley’s face. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it 
was a knocker again. He put his hand upon the key 
he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and 
lighted his candle. 

He paused before he shut the door; and looked 
cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to be 
terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail sticking out 
into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of 
the door, except the screws and nuts that held the 
knocker on, so he said, ‘Tooh, pooh!” and closed it 
with a bang which resounded through the house like 
thunder. 

Before Scrooge shut his own heavy door, he walked 
through his rooms to see that all was right. He had 
just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. 

Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a 
small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the 
little saucepan of gruel upon the hob. 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked him- 
self in. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his 



“it’s not convenient’’ said SCROOGE, 

[page 7.] 


“and it’s not fair.” 






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A Christmas Carol 


9 


cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his 
night-cap, and sat down before the fire to take his. 
gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a 
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and 
brood over it, before he could extract the least sensa- 
tion of warmth from such a handful of fuel. If each 
smooth tile in the fireplace had been a blank at first 
with power to shape some picture on its surface from 
the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would 
have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one. 

“Humbug!” said Scrooge; and walked across the 
room. 

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw 
his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest 
upon a disused bell, that hung in the room. It was 
with great dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell 
begin to swing. It swung softly in the outset but soon 
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. 

This might have lasted half a minute, but it seemed 
an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. 
They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down 
below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain 
over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. 

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, 
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors 
below; then, coming up the stairs, came straight to- 
wards his door. 

“It’s humbug still!” said Scrooge. “I won’t believe 
it.” 

His color changed, though, when without a pause it 
came on through the heavy door, and passed into the 
room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying 
flame leaped up, as though it cried. “I know him! 
Marley’s Ghost!” and fell again. 

The same face. Marley in his pigtail, usual waist- 
coat, tights and boots. The chain he drew was clasped 


A Christmas Carol 


lO 

about his middle. It was long, and wound about him 
like a tail, and it was made of cash-boxes, keys, pad- 
locks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel. 
His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing 
him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the 
two buttons on his coat behind. 

“What do you want with me?” said Scrooge, cold as 
ever. 

“Much!” — Marley’s voice, no doubt about it. 

“Who are you?” 

“Ask me who I was.” 

“Who were you, then?” said Scrooge, raising his 
voice. 

“In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.” 

, “Can you — can you sit down?” asked Scrooge, look- 
ing doubtfully at him. 

“I can.” 

“Do it then.” 

The Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire- 
place, as if he were quite used to it. 

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost. 

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge. 

“What evidence would you have of my reality be- 
yond that of your senses?” 

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge. 

“Why do you doubt your senses?” 

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. 
There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, what- 
ever you are!” 

“You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge. 

“I do,” replied the Ghost. 

“You are not looking at it,” said Scrooge. 

“But I see it,” said the Ghost, “notwithstanding.” 

“Well!” returned Scrooge. “I have but to swallow 
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a 
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, 
I tell you — humbug!” 


A Christmas Carol 


1 1 

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook 
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that 
Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from 
falling in a swoon. The phantom took off the band- 
age round its head, as if it were too warm to wear in- 
doors, and its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast. 

‘‘Mercy!” said Scrooge. “Dreadful apparition,, 
why do you trouble me?” 

“Man of the worldly niind!” replied the Ghost, “do 
you believe in me or not?” 

“I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits 
walk the earth and why do they come to me?” 

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned,, 
“that the spirit with him should walk abroad among his 
fellow-men, and travel far and wide, and if that spirit 
goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after 
death. It is doomed to wander through the world — 
oh, woe is me!” 

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell 
me why?” 

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the 
Ghost. “I made it link by link, and I girded it on of 
my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” 

“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the 
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? 
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christ- 
mas Eve’s ago. 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the ex- 
pectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty 
or sixty fathoms of iron cable ; but he could see nothing. 

“Jacob,” he said, imploringly. “Old Jacob Marley,. 
tell me more.” 

“I have none to give,” the Ghost replied. “Nor can 
I tell you what I would. I cannot rest, I cannot stay^ 
I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked 
beyond our counting-house — mark me! — in life my 
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our 
money-changing hole.” 


12 


A Christmas Carol 


“You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,’’ 
Scrooge observed in a business-like manner, though 
with humility and deference. 

“Seven years dead,” mused Scrooge, “and traveling 
all the time!” 

“The whole time,” said the Ghost. “No rest, no 
peace.” 

“You travel fast?” said Scrooge. 

“On the wings of the wind,” replied the Ghost. 

“You might have got over a great quantity of 
ground,” said Scrooge. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and 
clanked its chain hideously in the dead silence of the 
night. 

“Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed,” cried the 
phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labor, by 
immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eter- 
nity before the good of which it is susceptible is all 
developed.” 

It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were 
the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily 
upon the ground again. 

“Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly 
gone.” 

“I will,” said Scrooge. “But don’t be hard upon 
me, Jacob!” 

“How is it that I appear before you in a shape that 
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside 
you many and many a day.” 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shiverejd, 
and wiped the perspiration from his brow. 

“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the 
Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you 
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A 
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer. You 
will be haunted by three spirits.” 


A Christmas Carol 


13 

“Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob, 
Scrooge demanded, in a faltering voice. 

“It is.” 

“I — I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge. 

“Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot 
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to- 
morrow, when the bell tolls one.” 

“Couldn’t I take ’em all at once, and have it over, 
Jacob?” hinted Scrooge. 

“Expect the second on the next night at the same 
hour. The third upon the next night when the last 
stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me 
no more. Remember what has passed.” 

When it had said these words, the spectre took its 
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, 
as before, and the jaws were brought together with the 
bandage. In an erect attitude, with its chain wound 
over and about its arm, the apparition walked back- 
ward from Scrooge and at every step it took, the win- 
dow raised itself a little, so that when the spectre had 
reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned to Scrooge 
to approach, which he did. When they were within 
two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up its 
hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge 
stopped. 

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear; 
for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of 
confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamen- 
tations and regrets; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful 
and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a 
moment, joined in the mournful dirge, and floated out 
upon the bleak, dark night. 

Scrooge followed to the window; desperate in his 
curiosity. He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither 
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. 
Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; 


A Christmas Carol 


14 

some few were linked together; none were free. Many 
had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. 
He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a 
white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached 
to his ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to 
assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw 
below, upon a doorstep. 

Scrooge closed the window and examined the door 
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, 
as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts 
were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but 
stopped at the first syllable, and went straight to bed, 
without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant. 


STAVE TWO. 

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking 
out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transpar- 
ent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. 
He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his 
ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighboring church 
struck, and he listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on 
from six to seven and from seven to eight, and regularly 
up to twelve, then stopped. Twelve! It was past two 
when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An 
icicle must have got into the works. Twelve! 

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this 
most preposterous clock. Its raoid little pulse beat 
twelve, and stopped. 

“Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can 
have slept through a whole day and far into another 
night.” 

He scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the 


A Christmas Carol 


15 


window. He could only make out that it was still 
very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no 
noise of people running to and fro. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought it over, but 
could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the 
more perplexed he was. “Was it a dream or not?” 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chimes had gone 
three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sud- 
den, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation 
when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake 
until the hour was passed. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once 
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously 
and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his 
listening ear. 

“Ding, dong!” 

“A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting. 

“Ding, dong!” 

“Half-past!” said Scrooge. 

“Ding, dong!” 

“A quarter to it,” said Scrooge. 

“Ding, dong!” 

“The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and 
nothing else!” 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it 
now did with a deep, dull hollow, melancholy One. 
Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the 
curtains of his bed were drawn. 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, 
by a hand. Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent 
attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly 
visitor. 

It was a strange figure — like a child; yet not so like 
a child as like an old man, viewed through some super- 
natural medium, which gave him the appearance of 
having receded from the view, and being diminished 
to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about 


1 6 A Christmas Carol 

its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; 
and yet the face had not a wrinkle, and the tenderest 
bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and 
muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of 
uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately 
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It 
wore a tunic of the purest white ; and round its waist 
was bound a lustrous belt. It held a branch of fresh 
green holly in its hand; and its dress was trimmed with 
summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, 
that from the crown of its head there sprang a bright, 
clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and 
which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its 
duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which 
it now held under its arms. Its belt sparkled and 
glittered, now in one part and now in another. The 
figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness, being now a 
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty 
legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head 
without a body; of which dissolving parts, no outline 
would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melt- 
ed away, and then it would be itself again. 

“Are you the Spirit, whose coming was foretold to 
me?” 

“I am!” said the apparition. 

The voice was soft and gentle as if it were at a dis- 
tance. 

“Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded. 

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.” 

“Long past?” inquired Scrooge; observant of its 
dwarfish stature. 

“No. Your past.” 

Scrooge had a special desire to see the Spirit in his 
cap; and begged him to be covered. 

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon 
put out the light I give! Is it not enough that you are 
one of those whose passions made this cap, and force 


A Christmas Carol 


17 


me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon 
my brow!” 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend 
and made bold to inquire what business brought him. 

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost. 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped 
him gently by the arm. 

“Rise and walk with me!” 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that 
the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedes- 
trian purposes. The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s 
hand, was not to be resisted. The Spirit made towards 
the window and Scrooge clasped its robe in supplica- 
tion. 

“I am mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to 
fall.” 

“Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, 
laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in 
more than this!” 

As the words were spoken they passed through the 
wall, and stood upon an open country road. 

“Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands 
together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this 
place. I was a boy here.” 

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle 
touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, ap- 
peared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. 
He was conscious of thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and 
cares long, long forgotten! 

“Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And 
what is that upon your cheek?” 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his 
voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to 
lead him where he would. 

“You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit. 

“Remember it!” cried Scrooge, with fervor — “I 
could walk it blindfold.” 


1 8 A Christmas Carol 

‘^Strange to have forgotten it for so many years !^’ 
observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.” 

They w^alked along the road, Scrooge recognizing 
every gate, post, and tree, until a little market-town 
appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church 
and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were 
seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, 
who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, 
driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spir- 
its, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields 
were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed 
to hear it. 

“These are but shadows of the things that have 
been,” said the Ghost. 

The jocund travelers came on; and Scrooge knew 
and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced be- 
yond all bounds to see them? Why was he filled with 
gladness when he heard them give each other Merry 
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, 
for their several homes? What was merry Christmas 
to Scrooge? 

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A 
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is still there.” 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the high-road and approached a mansion 
of dull red brick. It was a large house, but one of 
broken fortunes, for the spacious offices were little 
used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows 
broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and 
strutted in the stables. Entering the dreary house and 
glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they 
found them poorly furnished, cold and vast. There 
was an earthly savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the 
place. 

They went across the hall, to a door at the back of 
the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a 
long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines 


A Christmas Carol 


19 


of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lone- 
ly boy was reading near a feeble fire ; and Scrooge sat 
down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten 
self as he had used to be. 

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to 
his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a 
man, in foreign garments — wonderfully real and dis- 
tinct to look at — stood outside the window, with an axe 
stuck in his belt, and leading an ass laden with wood 
by the bridle. 

‘Why, it’s dear old Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed, 
in ecstasy. 

“Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yon- 
der solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, 
for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! and Valen- 
tine,” said Scrooge, “and his old brother Orson; there 
they go! And what’s his name, who was put down 
in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t 
you see him! And the sultan’s Groom turned upside 
down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve 
him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to 
be married to the princess. 

“There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. There he is! 
Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came 
home after sailing round the island. The man thought 
he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, 
you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to 
the little creek! Hulloa! Hoop! Halloo!” 

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to 
his usual character, he said, in a pity for his former 
self, “Poor boy!” and cried again. 

“I wish,” Scrooge muttered, after drying his eyes 
with his cufif; “but it’s too late now.” 

“What’s the matter?” asked the Spirit. 

“Nothing,” said Scrooge. “Nothing. There was 
a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. 
I should like to have given him something — that’s all.” 


20 


A Christmas Carol 


The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand; 
saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!” 

Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and 
the room became a little darker and more dirty. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down 
despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with 
a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously to- 
wards the door. 

It opened,’ and a little girl, much younger than the 
boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his 
neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 
“Dear, dear brother.” 

“I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” 
said the child, clasping her tiny hands, and bending 
down to laugh. 

“Home, little Fan?” returned the boy. 

“Yes,” said the child, brimful of glee. “Father is 
so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like 
Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night 
when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask 
him once more if you might come home; and he said, 
“Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. 
And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her 
eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re 
to be together all the Christmas long, and have the 
merriest time in all the world.” 

In the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who 
glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescen- 
sion, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by 
shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and 
his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best- 
parlor that ever was seen, where the maps upon the 
wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the 
windows were waxy with cold. Here he produced a 
decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of 
curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of 
those dainties to the young people. Master Scrooge’s 


A Christmas Carol 


21 


trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, 
the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye and drove 
gaily down the garden-sweep ; the quick wheels dash- 
ing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of 
the evergreens like spray. 

“Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might 
have withered,” said the Ghost. “But she had a large 
heart!” 

“So she had,” cried Scrooge. “You’re right. I’ll 
not gainsay it. Spirit. God forbid!” 

“She died a woman,” said the Ghost, “and had, as I 
think, children.” 

“One child,” Scrooge returned. 

“True,” said the Ghost. “Your nephew!” 

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered 
briefly, “Yes.” 

Although they had but that moment left the school 
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfare 
of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and re- 
passed. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of 
the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; 
but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and 
asked Scrooge if he knew it. 

“Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed 
here?” 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a 
Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he 
had been two inches taller he must have knocked his 
head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excite- 
ment: 

“Why, it’s old Fezziwig!” 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen and looked up at 
the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He 
rubbed his hands, and adjusted his waistcoat, and 
laughed all over himself, and called out in a jovial 
voice : 

“Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!” 


22 


A Christmas Carol 


Scrooge’s former self, now a grown young man, 
came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice. 

“Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the 
Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very 
much attached to me, was Dick.” 

“Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work 
tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! 
Let’s have the shutters up before a man can say Jack 
Robinson!” 

You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at 
it! They charged into the street with the shutters and 
came back before you could think, panting like race- 
horses. 

“Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from 
the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, 
my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, 
Dick, Chirrup, Ebenezer!” 

The lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the 
fire, and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and 
dry and bright a ballroom, as you would desire to see 
upon a winter’s night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up 
to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned 
like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one 
vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezzi- 
wigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young 
followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the 
young men and women employed in the business. In 
they all came, one after another. 

Away they all went, twenty couples at once, hands 
half round and back agaifi the other way; down the 
middle and up again; round and round in various 
stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always 
turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting 
off again, as soon as they got there, all top couple at 
last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this 
result was brought, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands 


A Christmas Carol 


23 


to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the 
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, es- 
pecially provided for that purpose. 

But the great effect of the evening came when the 
fiddler struck up “Sir Roger de Coverly.” Then old 
Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. 
Top couple too; with a stiff piece of work cut out for 
them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; peo- 
ple who were not to be trifled with ; people who would 
dance, and had no notion of walking. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball 
broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, 
one on either side the door, and shaking hands with 
every person individually, as he or she went out, wished 
him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had 
retired but the two ^prentices, they did the same to 
them ; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the 
lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter 
in the back shop. 

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted 
like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in 
the scene, and with his former self. It was not until 
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick 
were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, 
and became conscious that it was looking full upon 
him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. 

“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these 
silly folks so full of gratitude.” 

“Small!” echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two appren- 
tices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of 
Fezziwig — and when he had done so, said: 

“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds 
of your mortal money. Is that so much that he de- 
serves this praise?” 

“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, 
and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his lat- 


24 


A Christmas Carol 


ter, self. isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to 
render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light 
or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power 
lies in words and looks ; in things so slight and insignifi- 
cant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up — 
what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as 
if it cost a fortune.” 

He felt the Spirit’s glance and stopped. 

“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost. 

“Nothing particular,” said Scrooge. 

“Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted. 

“No,” said Scrooge. “No. I should like to be able 
to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all.” 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave ut- 
terance to the wish ; and Scrooge and the Ghost again 
stood side by side in the open air. 

“My time grows short,” observed the Spirit. 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one 
whom he could see, but it produced an immediate 
effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was 
older now; a man in the prime of life. 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young 
girl in a mourning-dress; in whose eyes there were 
tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the 
Ghost of Christmas Past. 

“It matters little,” she said, softly. Another idol 
has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you 
in time to come, as I have tried to do, I have no just 
cause to grieve.” 

“What idol has displaced you?” he rejoined. 

“A golden one.” 

“This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he 
said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as pov- 
erty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with 
such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” 

“You fear the world too much,” she answered. 



THEN OLD FEZZIWIG STOOD OUT TO DANCE WITH MRS. 
FEZZIWIG. [page 23.] 





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A Christmas Carol 2^ 

‘What then?” he retorted. “I am not changed to- 
wards you.” 

She shook her head. 

“Am I?” 

“Our contract is an old one. It was made when we 
were both poor and content to be so, until, in good 
season, we could improve out worldly fortune by our 
patient industry. When it was made, you were an- 
other man.” 

“I was a boy,” he said, impatiently. 

“Your own feeling tells you that you were not what 
you are,” she answered. “I am. That which prom- 
ised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught 
with misery now that we are two. It is enough that 
I have thought of it, and can release you.” 

“Have I ever sought release?” 

“In words. No. -Never.” 

“In what, then?” 

“In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in an- 
other atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great 
end. In everything that made my love of any worth 
or value in your sight. If this had never been between 
us,” said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, 
upon him, “tell me, would you seek me out and try to 
win me now? Ah, no.” 

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, 
in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, “You 
think not.” 

“I would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she an- 
swered. 

He was about to speak; but with her head turned 
from him, she resumed: 

“You may have pain in this for a very brief time, 
and you will dismiss the recollection of it as a dream, ■ 
from which it happened well that you awoke. May you 
be happy in the life which you have chosen!” 

She left him, and they parted. 


26 


A Christmas Carol 


“Spirit!” said Scrooge, “show me no more! Conduct 
me home.” 

“One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost. 

“No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more.” 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both arms, 
and forced him to observe what happened next. 

They were in another scene and place; a room not 
very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to 
the winter fire a beautiful young girl, so like the last 
that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, 
now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. 
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for 
there were more children in this room than Scrooge in 
his agitated state of mind could count. The consequences 
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to 
care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter 
laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much. 

Now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a 
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face 
and plundered dress was borne towards it, the center of 
a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the 
father, who came home attended by a man laden with 
Christmas toys and presents. The shouts of wonder 
and delight with which the development of every pack- 
age was received! It is enough that by degrees the 
children and their emotions got out of the parlor and 
by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where 
they went to bed, and so subsided. 

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than 
ever, when the master of the house, having his daugh- 
ter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her 
mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that 
such another creature, might have called him father, 
his sight grew very dim indeed. 

“Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a 
smile, “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.” 

“Who was it?” 


A Christmas Carol 


27 


was Mr. Scrooge. I passed his office window; 
and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I 
could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon 
the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. 
Quite alone in the world, I do believe.” 

^‘Spirit!” said Scrooge in a broken voice, “remove 
me from this place.” 

“I told you these were shadows of the things that 
have been,” said the Ghost. 

“Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed, “I cannot bear 
it!” 

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked 
upon him with a face, in which in some strange way 
there were fragments of all the cases it had shown him, 
wrestled with it. “Leave me!” 

Scrooge observed that the Ghosts’ light was burning 
high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its 
influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap and 
by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, and Scrooge found 
himself in his own bed. 


STAVE THREE. 

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

Awaking in the middle of a snore, and sitting up in 
bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occa- 
sion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke 
of One. He wished to challenge the Spirit on the mo- 
ment of its appearance and did not .wish to be taken by 
surprise and made nervous. 

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was 
not by any means prepared for nothing; and, when the 
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared he was taken 
with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten 


28 


A Christmas Carol 


minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing 
came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core 
and center of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed 
upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour. 

He got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the 
door. 

The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a 
strange voice called his name and bade him enter. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about 
that. But it had undergone a surprising transforma- 
tion. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living 
green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part 
of which, bright, gleaming berries glistened. 

“Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in! and 
know me better, man !” 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before 
the Spirit. 

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” said the Spirit. 
“Look at me!” 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one 
simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with 
white fur. Its dark brown curls were long and free; 
free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, 
its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its 
joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique 
scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath 
was eaten up with rust. 

“You have never seen the like of me before!” ex- 
claimed the Spirit. 

“Never,” Scrooge made answer to it. 

“Have never walked forth with the younger mem- 
bers of my family; meaning my elder brothers born in 
these later years?” pursued the Phantom. 

“I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. “I am afraid 
I have not.” 

“Touch my robe!” 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 


A Christmas Carol 


29 


The room vanished and they stood in the city streets 
on Christmas morning. The sky was gloomy, and the 
shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half- 
thawed, half-frozen, whose heavier particles des- 
cended into a shower of sooty atoms. 

The people who were shoveling away the snow on 
the house-tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out 
to one another from the parapets, and now and then 
exchanging a snow-ball. 

But soon the steeples called good people all, to 
church and chapel, and away they came, flocking 
through the streets in their best clothes, and with their 
gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged 
from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, 
innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the Bar- 
ker’s shop. The sight of these poor revelers appeared 
to interest the Spirit very much, for she stood with 
Scrooge beside him in the baker’s doorway, and taking 
oflf the covers as their bearers passed sprinkled incense 
on their dinners from his torch. And it was very un- 
common kind of torch for once or twice when there 
were angry words between some dinner-carriers who 
had jostled with each other, he shed a few drops of wa- 
ter on them from it and their good humor was restored 
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon 
Christmas Day. And so it was! 

Perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit has in 
showing off his power or his sympathy with all poor 
men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk; for there 
he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding his robe; 
and on the threshold the Spirit smiled, and stopped to 
bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinklings of 
his torch. Bob had but fifteen “Bob” a-week himself ; 
and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his 
four-roomed house! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit Cratchit’s wife, dressed 
out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in 


30 


A Christmas Carol 


ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for 
sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda. 

“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young 
Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!” 

“Why, bless your heart, alive, my dear, how late you 
are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times. 

“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” re- 
plied the girl, “And had to clear away this morning, 
mother!” 

“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said 
Mrs. Cratchit. 

In came little Bob, the father with Tiny Tim upon 
his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little 
crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! 

At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. 
It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. 
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, 
prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, 
and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued 
forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, 
and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratch- 
its, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and 
feebly cried. Hurrah! 

There never was such a goose. Its tenderness and 
flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 
admiration. Everyone had had enough and now the 
plates were changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit 
left the room alone to take the pudding up and bring it 
in. 

In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but 
smiling proudly — with the pudding like a speckled 
cannon-ball and bedight with Christmas holly stuck 
into the top. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared 
and the fire made up. Then all the Cratchit family 
drew around the hearth, and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow 
stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and 
a custard-cup without a handle. 


A Christmas Carol 


31 


“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless 
us,^’ proposed Bob, and which all the family re-echoed. 

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last 
of all. 

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never 
felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim wilBlive.” 

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor 
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, care- 
fully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered 
by the Future, the child will die.” 

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say 
he will live.” 

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, 
none other of my race,” returned the Ghost,” will find 
him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had 
better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted 
by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence. 

“Man,” said the Ghost, “If man you be in heart, it 
may be, that in the sight of heaven you are less fit to live 
than millions like this poor man’s child. 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and tremb- 
ling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them 
immediately upon hearing his own name. 

“Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. 
Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!” 

“The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. 
Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d 
give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope 
he’d have a good appetite for it.’ 

“My dear,” said Bob, “the children! Christmas day.” 

“It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, 
“on which one drinks the health of such an odious, 
stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You 
know he is, Robert!” 

“My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas 
Day.” 


32 


A Christmas Carol 


‘‘I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” 
said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! He’ll be 
very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!” 

After this was past, they were ten times merrier than 
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful 
being done with. 

They were not a handsome family; they were not 
well dressed; their shoes were far from being water- 
proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have 
known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn- 
broker’s. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with 
one another, and contented with the time; and when 
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright 
sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge 
had his eye upon them, and especially Tiny Tim, until 
the last. 

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty 
hard, and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the 
streets. 

And now, without a word of warning from the 
Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where 
monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as 
though it were the burial-place of giants; and water 
spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done 
so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing 
grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. 

“What place is this?” asked Scrooge. 

“The place where Miners live, who labor in the bow- 
els of the earth,” returned the Spirit. “But they 
know me.” 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold 
his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? 
Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking 
back, he saw the last of land, a frightful range of 
rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the 
thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged 



MRS. CRATCHIT ENTERED FLUSHED, BUT SMILING PROUDLY 

WITH THE PUDDING. [PAGE 30.] 





A Christmas Carol 


33 

among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely 
tried to undermine the earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some 
league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed 
and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a soli- 
tary lighthouse. 

But even here, two men who watched the light had 
made a fire, and through the loophole in the thick stone 
wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. 
Joining their horny hands on the rough table at which 
they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas on 
their can of grog. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black 
and heaving sea — on, on — until, being far away, 
as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they 
lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helms- 
man at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the 
officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in 
their several stations; but every man among them 
hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, 
or spoke below his breath to his companion of some by- 
gone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belong- 
ing to it. 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to 
the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn 
thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness 
over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as 
profound as Death; it was a great surprise to Scrooge, 
while thus engaged to hear a hearty laugh. It was a 
much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his 
own nephew’s and to find himself in a bright, gleaming 
room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and 
looking at the same nephew with approving affability. 

^‘Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, 
ha!” “He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I 
live!” He believed it, too!” 


A Christmas Carol 

‘‘More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, 
indignantly. 

She was pretty, altogether she was what you would 
have called provoking, you know. 

“He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, 
^‘that’s the truth ; and not so pleasant as he might be.” 

“I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s 
niece. “At least you always tell me so.” 

“What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s nephew. 
“His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good 
with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it.” 

After tea they had some music and when the strains 
of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown 
him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more, 
and thought that if he could have listened to it often 
years ago, he might have cultivated the kindness of life 
for his own happiness with his own hands, without re- 
sorting to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley. 

The whole scene passed of! in a breath and he and 
the Spirit were again upon their travels. 

Much they saw and far they went, and many homes 
they visited, but always with a happy end. 

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but 
Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas 
Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of 
time they passed together. It was strange, too, that 
while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward 
form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge 
had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until 
they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, look- 
ing at the Spirit as they stood together in an open 
place, he noticed that its hair was gray. 

“Are Spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge. 

“My life upon this globe is very brief,” replied the 
Ghost. “It ends to-night.” “To-night at midnight.” 
The time is drawing near. 

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past 
eleven at that moment. 


A Christmas Carol 


35 


^Torgive me if I am not justified in what I ask/’ said 
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I 
see something strange, and not belonging to yourself^ 
protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?” 

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,’^ 
was the Spirit’s sorrowful answer. ^‘Look here.” 

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two chil- 
dren; wretched, frightful, hideous, miserable. They 
knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its 
garment. 

“Oh! Man look here!” exclaimed the Ghost. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them 
shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine 
children, but the words choked themselves rather than 
be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more. 

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down 
upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from 
their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is 
Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but 
most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that 
written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. 
Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand to- 
wards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit 
it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And 
hide the end !” 

^^Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge. 

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on 
him for the last time with his own words. “Are there 
no workhouses?” 

The bell struck twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it 
not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remem- 
bered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting 
up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and 
hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards 
him. 


STAVE FOUR. 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. 
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which con- 
cealed its head, its form, and left nothing of it visible 
save one outstretched hand. 

“I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet 
to Come?” said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward 
with its hand. 

“You are about to show me shadows of the things 
that have not happened, but will happen in the time 
before us,” Scrooge pursued. “Is that so. Spirit?” 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for 
an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its 
head. That was the only answer he received. 

“Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed, “I fear you 
more than any Spectre I have seen. But, as I know 
your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to 
be another man from what I was, I am prepared to 
bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. 
Will you not sptak to me?” 

It gave no reply. The hand was pointed straight 
before them. 

“Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead on!” 

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards 
him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress. 

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city 
rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass 
them of its own act. But they were there, in the heart 
of it; on ’Change, amongst the merchants; who hur- 
ried up and down, and chinked the money in their 
pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their 

36 


A Christmas Carol 


37 

watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their gold seals 
as Scrooge had seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business 
men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, 
Scrooge advances to listen to their talk. 

“No,’’ said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 
“I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know 
he’s dead.” 

“When did he die?” inquired another. 

“Last night, I believe.” 

“Why what was the matter with him?” asked a third, 
taking a vast quantity of snuflf out of a very large snuff- 
box. “I thought he’d never die.” 

“God knows,” said the first with a yawn. 

“What has he done with his money?” asked a red- 
faced gentleman. 

“I haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin. 

“It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral,” said the same 
speaker, “for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to 
go to it.” 

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger 
pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened 
again. He knew these men perfectly. They were men 
of business of great importance. 

“How are you,” said one. 

“How are you?” returned the other. 

“Well,” said the first. “Old Scratch has got his own 
at last, hey?” 

“So I am told,” returned the first. 

Not another word. That was their meeting, their 
conversation, and their parting. 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with 
its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from 
his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the 
hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the 
Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made 
him shudder, and feel very cold. 


38 


A Christmas Carol 


They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure 
part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated 
before. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops 
and houses wretched; the people half-naked, slip-shod, 
ugly. The whole quarter reeked with crime, with 
filth, and misery. 

Far into this den of infamous resort, there was a low- 
browed beetling shop ; below a penthouse roof, where 
iron, old rags, bottles, bones and greasy oil, were 
bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of 
rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, 
and refuse iron of all kinds. Sitting in among the wares 
was a grey-haired rascal, who had screened himself 
from the cold air without, and smoked his pipe in all 
the luxury of calm retirement. 

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of 
this man just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk 
into the shop. She had but entered when in came an- 
other woman, similarly laden, and she was closely fol- 
lowed by a man in faded black, and they all seemed 
startled to see each other. After a short period of 
blank astonishment, in which the old man with the 
pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh! 

^‘Come into the parlor,” said he. 

The parlor was the space behind the screen of rags. 

“What odds, then,” What odds, Mrs. Dilber?” said 
one of the women, “Every person has a right to take 
care of themselves. He always did!” 

“That’s true, indeed!” said the laundress. “No man 
more so.” 

“Why, then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid, 
woman; who’s the wiser?” 

“If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a 
wicked old screw,” pursued the woman, “why wasn’t 
he natural in his lifetime?” 

“It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs. 
Dilber. 


A Christmas Carol 


39 

“I wish it was a little heaver one,” replied the 
woman. Open that bundle old Joe, and let me know 
the value of it. 

A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve buttons, 
and a brooch of no great value were all. They were 
severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who 
chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon 
the wall. 

‘‘What do you call this?” said Joe. “Bed-curtains!” 

“That’s what,” replied the woman. 

“You don’t mean to say you took them with him 
lying there?” said Joe. 

“Yes I do,” replied the woman. 

“I hope he did’nt die of anything catching? Eh?” 
said old Joe. 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. 

“Ha, ha,” laughed the same woman, as Joe produced 
a flannel bag with money in it and told out their several 
gains upon the ground. 

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, shuddering from head to 
foot. “I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man 
might be my own. Merciful Heaven, what is this?” 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and 
now he almost touched a bed; a bare, uncurtained bed; 
on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay something 
covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced 
itself in awful language. 

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady 
hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so care- 
lessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the mo- 
tion of a finger upon Scrooge’s part, would have dis- 
closed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it 
would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more 
power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre 
at his side. 

He thought, if this man could be raised up now, 
what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard 


40 


A Christmas Carol 


dealing, gripping cares? They have brought him to a 
rich end, truly! 

“Spirit!” he said, “this is a fearful place. In leav- 
ing it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me.” 

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a 
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a 
room by daylight, where a mother and her children 
were. 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She 
hurried to the door and met her husband. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding 
for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly 
what news, he appeared embarrassed how to answer. 

“Is it good,” she said, “or bad?” to help him. 

“Bad,” he answered. 

“We are quite ruined?” 

“No. There is hope yet, Caroline.” 

“If he relents,” she said, amazed, “there is! Noth- 
ing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.” 

“He is past relenting; he is dead.” 

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke 
truth ; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and 
she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgive- 
ness the next moment. 

“What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of 
last night said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain 
a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse 
to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was 
not only quite ill, but dying then.” 

“To whom will our debt be transferred?” 

“I don’t know. But before that time we shall be 
ready with the money.” 

“Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” 
said Scrooge; “or that dark chamber. Spirit, which we 
left just now, will be forever present to me.” 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets 
familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge 



THE SPIRIT STOPPED BESIDE ONE LITTLE KNOT OF BUSINESS MEN. 

[page 37.] 




A Christmas Carol 


41 


looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was 
he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s 
house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found 
the mother and children seated around the fire. 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put 
her hand up to her face. 

“The color hurts my eyes,” she said. 

The color? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 

“There is your father at the door,” said she. 

She hurried out to meet him; his tea was ready for 
him on the hob, and they all tried who could help him 
to it most. 

Bob was very cheerful with them all, and spoke 
pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work 
upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of 
Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long 
before Sunday, he said. 

“Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could 
have gone. It would have done you good to see how 
green the place is. But you’ll see it often. My little, 
little child!” cried Bob. “My little child!” 

He broke down all at once. He couldn’t help it. 
He left the room, and went upstairs into the room 
above. Poor Bob sat down beside the little child and 
kissed its little face, and then went down again, quite 
happy. 

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, 
the two young Cratchits kissed him. Spirit of Tiny 
Tim, the childish essence was from God! 

“Spectre,” said Scrooge, “something informs me 
that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I 
know not how. Tell me what man that was who we 
saw lying dead.” 

The Spirit went straight on, until besought by 
Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 

“This court,” said Scrooge, “through which we 
hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has 


42 


A Christmas Carol 


been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me 
behold what I shall be, in days to come!” 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and 
looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The fur- 
niture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was 
not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. 

He joined it it once again, and wondering why and 
whither he had gone, accompanied it until they 
reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before 
entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose 
name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed 
down to One. 

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you 
point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are 
these the shadows of the things that Will be, or the 
shadows of things that May be, only?” 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by 
which it stood. 

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to 
which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. 
“But if the courses be departed from, the ends will 
change. Say it is thus with what you show me!” 

The Spirit was as immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went, and 
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neg- 
lected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

“Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, 
upon his knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back 
again. 

“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground 
he fell before it; “Your nature intercedes for me, and 
pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these 
shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!” 

The kind hand trembled. 


A Christmas Carol 


4.T 

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought 
to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and de- 
tained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. 

Holding up his hands in one last prayer he saw the 
Phantom shrink, collapse, and dwindle into a bed-post. 


STAVE FIVE. 

Yes! and the bed-post was his own. The bed was 
his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of 
all. Time was his own, to make amends in! 

‘T will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!’^ 
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The 
Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob 
Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised 
for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob Marley, on 
my knees I” 

“They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding 
one of his bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn 
down, rings and all. They are here; the shadows of 
the things that would have been, may be dispelled.” 

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing 
and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect 
Laocoon of himself with his stockings. “I am as light 
as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry 
as a school-boy. A merry Christmas to everybody! 
Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!” 

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now 
standing there; perfectly winded. 

“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried 
Scrooge, starting ofif again, and frisking round the fire- 
place. “There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob 
Marley entered! There’s the window where I saw the 


44 


A Christmas Carol 


wandering Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all 
happened! Ha, ha, ha!” 

“I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said 
Scrooge. don’t know how long I’ve been among 
the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. 
Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. 
Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!” 

“What’s to-day?” cried Scrooge, calling downward 
to a boy in Sunday clothes. 

“To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, Christmas 
Day!” 

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I 
haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one 
night. Hallo, my fine fellow!” 

“Hallo!” returned the boy. 

“Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey 
that was at the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one?” 

“What, the one big as me?” returned the boy. 

“Yes, my buck,” said Scrooge. 

“It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy. 

“Go and buy it,” said Scrooge, “and tell them to 
bring it here, that I may give them directions where to 
take it. Come back with the man in less than five min- 
utes and I will give you half-a-crown !” 

“I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit!” whispered Scrooge, 
splitting with a laugh. “He shan’t know who sends it. 
It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim.” 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a 
steady one, but write it he did and went down stairs to 
open the street door. As he stood there, waiting the 
poulterer’s arrival, the knocker caught his eye. 

“I shall love it, as long as I live!” cried Scrooge, pat- 
ting it with his hand. “I scarcely ever looked at it be- 
fore. What an honest expression it has on its face! 
It’s a wonderful knocker! Here’s the turkey. Hallo! 
Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!” 


A Christmas Carol 


45 

‘‘Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camdem 
Town,” said Scrooge. “You must have a cab.” 

He dressed himself “all in his best,” and at last got 
out into the streets. The people were by this time 
pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of 
Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind 
him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delightful 
smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, 
that three or four good-humored fellows said, “Good 
morning. Sir! A Merry Christmas to you!” And 
Scrooge said afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds 
he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him 
he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into 
his counting-house the day before and said, “Scrooge 
and Marley’s, I believe?” It sent a pang across his 
heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon 
him when they met ; but he knew what path lay straight 
before him, and he took it. 

“My dear Sir,” said Scrooge. “That is my name, 
and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to 
ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness — ” 
here Scrooge whispered in his ear. 

“Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his 
breath were gone. “My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you 
serious?” 

“If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less.” 

“My dear Sir,” said the other, shaking hands with 
him. “I don’t know what to say to such munifi — ” 

“Thank’ee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged to 
you. Bless you!” 

In the afternoon, he turned his steps towards his 
nephew’s house. 

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the 
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash and 
did it. 


46 


A Christmas Carol 


“Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to 
the girl. 

“Yes, sir, He’s in the dining-room. Sir, along with 
the mistress. I’ll show you upstairs, if you please.” 

“Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his 
hand already on the dining-room lock. “I’ll go in 
here, my dear.” 

He turned in gently, and sidled his face in, round the 
door. They were looking at the table for these young 
housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and 
like to see that everything is all right. 

“Fred!” said Scrooge. 

“Why, bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?” 

“It’s I. Your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to din- 
ner. Will you let me in, Fred?” 

“Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm 
off.” He was at home in five minutes. Nothing 
could be heartier. 

He was early at the office next morning. 

Oh he was early there. If he could only be there 
first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was 
the thing he had set his heart upon. And he did it; 
yes, he did it! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A 
quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes 
and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door 
wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. 

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his com- 
forter, too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving 
away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine 
o’clock. 

“Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice 
as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by 
coming here at this time of day?” 

“I am very sorry, Sir,” said Bob. “I am behind 
my time.” 

“You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes, I think you 
are. Step this way. Sir, if you please.” 


(i Christmas Carol 


47 


“It’s only once a year,” pleaded Bob, appearing 
from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was 
making rather merry yesterday, Sir.” 

“Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, 
“I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. 
And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, 
and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he 
staggered back into the Tank again; “and therefore I 
I am about to raise your salary!” 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. 
He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down 
with it; holding him; and calling to the people in the 
court for help and a strait-waistcoat. 

“A Merry Christmas, Bob!” cried Scrooge, with an 
earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped 
him on the back. “Merrier Christmas Bob, my good 
fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I’ll 
raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your strug- 
gling family, and we’ll discuss your affairs this very 
afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, 
Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle 
before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.” 

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and 
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he 
was a second father. He became as good a friend, as 
good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city 
knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in 
the good old world. Some people laughed to see the 
alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little 
heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that noth- 
ing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which 
some people did not have their fill of laughter in the 
outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind 
anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should 
wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in 
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed; and 
that was quite enough for him. 


48 


A Christmas Carol 


He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived 
upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; 
and it was always said of him, that he knew how to 
keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the 
knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of 
us!” And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless us, 
Every One! 


THE END. 








